


The Silence

by GwenhwyvarReads



Series: The Exiles [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Homeworld Gems - Freeform, Homeworld is Horrible, Original Character Story, SU Corundums, SU Ruby, SU Sapphire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 17:53:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14816037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwenhwyvarReads/pseuds/GwenhwyvarReads
Summary: Sapphire was created to be a special Gem, a gift from one Diamond to another. Her place in Gem society, her role, her fate - all these things were determined before she existed. Except no one could have predicted that a rogue Quartz would start a rebellion and shatter her Diamond. A mix of debilitating anxiety and depression, paired with unexpectedly weak ability in Foresight, has made her worthless to the society that made her. However, a place where she can serve some practical use has been found - out of sight and out of mind.





	The Silence

**Author's Note:**

> [The Exiles](http://empyrisan.tumblr.com/post/174451582794/) is a ~~very gay and somewhat self-indulgent~~ project between myself and my partner, Empyrisan, featuring a cast of original characters. I will be posting some stand-alone stories from it now and then! The characters are all original ones set in another part of universe from the show. For the character line-up with lovely art by Empyrisan, please check it out the link or see the image at the bottom!

Sapphire and Silence had developed a long and complicated relationship. 

When she had first been ~~abandoned~~ assigned to this temple, she'd been told it had been a leisure spot that had lost popularity over a millennia ago because it was too far from any major colonies to be either convenient or fashionable. It still had its tranquility and scenic views, an Agate had assured her. The other Gem had all but kissed her slippers, but Sapphire knew the difference between cut glass and crystal. Even if her Sight was as clouded as the Diamond Authority suspected, she still had an eye to see and she took careful note of the mockery hiding just behind the pretty words and simpering smiles. 

She made no comment on it. If she’d had the social standing to punish the Agate, then the Gem in question wouldn’t have dared to gloat in the first place. That was the way of the Diamonds’ courts, to lavish attention on Gems who shone bright in the reflected light from the Diamonds and to sneer at those who were revealed to be flawed. And it was her way, as a Sapphire, to accept the inevitable. Who else knew more plainly that the future could not be avoided? 

So she went demurely, wrapping herself in what little dignity she had left. After a perfunctory tour of the temple, which had been built on the barren shore of an ocean that covered almost the entirety of that planet, she was left. No one, Sapphire least of all, pointed out that the grounds were in ruins and the temple a dusty shell of its glory days. It reminded Sapphire of herself and she pitied ~~herself~~ it. 

At first, the solitude felt like peace. Sapphire embraced the relief of not having to meet any expectations and spent her days idly wandering her new prison exile home. The main hall had been constructed with vaulted ceilings supported by elegant columns on a grand scale meant to ~~humble lesser Gems and remind them of their insignificance~~ suit the equally magnificent height of a Diamond. Between the pillars, ornate statuary alternated places with colored crystal windows, the panes of which depicted scenes from Gem history from across the known universe. Worlds ~~conquered and pillaged~~ colonized by the Diamond Authority for the enjoyment and advancement of ~~themselves and their courts~~ all loyal Gems. 

Earth had been one in a long line of planets colonized, not for leisure but for its abundant resources. She could close her eye, but it could no more block out memory than it could shut out the Visions that made her a Sapphire. She'd felt so very ~~superior~~ special to have been created. For her first world, Pink Diamond was to begin her reign with everything new and made exactly to her satisfaction. A slightly smaller than average Sapphire ~~to make the youngest Diamond feel taller~~ with attire and hair arranged to match her mistress’s tastes, she was made as a gift from one Diamond to another. Life had been comfortable and her position purely ornamental. No primitive organic posed any real threat. 

Then Rose Quartz and her rebellion happened. Even then, there seemed to be little cause for concern. ~~How she'd pitied them and the doomed planet.~~ In her mind’s eye, she saw the planet already turned to ash and dead rock, so the ~~noble cause~~ futile resistance was barely a speck on her horizon. That is, until she'd found herself dismissed from her position in favor of a more experienced Sapphire. Just as a precaution. ~~How quickly her pity had turned to icy resentment.~~ And then Fate took a twist that no one, not even a single Sapphire, had seen coming. Pink Diamond had been shattered. 

So had her replacement, for her failure in preventing that tragedy. ~~Sapphire had cried hysterically in a nauseating mix of shame and relief. Thank the stars it wasn’t her. It could have been her!~~ For that same reason, they would have all been sacrificed to Blue Diamond’s wild descent into grief and vengeance, but Yellow Diamond was a practical Gem. Shattering one Gem to make a public example was one thing, but the eradication of all existing Sapphires was deemed wasteful. Blue Diamond had seen reason, but only after an argument that shook the building to its foundations and sent all lesser individuals running as far as they dared. No one had wanted to be caught away from their posts, but neither did it seem prudent to be anywhere in sight. 

Sapphire had hidden even though she could clearly See how the disagreement would end. If a Sapphire could have a blind spot, if a Sapphire could make a mistake or miss something that significant, it broke the central belief they had all held: a Sapphire could never be wrong. And one had been. The shadows of doubt and personal destruction had entered her existence and she had never seen clearly again. 

Well, yes and no. Her ability to see the short-term Possibilities was undimmed. ~~Stars above and below, she was nearsighted Seer.~~ When she was feeling calm, she could look farther… but she was never calm. Not anymore. Over time, she grew terrified of looking far into the future. Every failed attempt added to her skyrocketing anxiety and the conviction that there was something wrong with her. She could have asked another Sapphire if this was normal, but what if it wasn’t? What if she was defective? What if the other Gem reported it to the Diamonds? In a society where every Gem was created for a purpose, there was no place for Gem that couldn't be cut to fit her setting. 

Fortunately, all the Diamonds cared about were events that were only days or even hours away. And she wasn’t being consulted. At some point, Blue Diamond had recognized Sapphire as her forgotten gift and the sentimentality ~~that no other Gem would have been permitted to wallow in~~ that motivated her to preserve other relics of Pink Diamond’s short rule also prompted her to set Sapphire aside. Out of sight, out of mind. ~~She felt like she was going out of her mind too.~~ While others suffered and were destroyed, she was ~~so horrifically ashamed and grateful~~ safe. Idle. Nothing to do but obsess over her flaws and grow paranoid. 

Paranoia was not unjustified. Even after the rebellion had been ~~shattered like Pink Diamond~~ put to rest, she couldn’t find rest for herself. The Diamonds began purging their ranks of any gems suspected of traitorous sympathies. Gems disappeared in those dark decades, never to be seen or spoken of again. She had known what was happening, they all did, but not a single Gem dared say anything that might turn attention in their own direction. 

No Gem had been above suspicion, except the Diamonds themselves, and even those too publicly prominent to be disposed of without an open trial knew their days were numbered. The Zircons defending them knew it as well and Sapphire had pitied them as much as ~~herself~~ all the rest. They were compelled to face the Diamonds routinely with their already condemned clients. Knowing there was nothing she could do to help didn’t make her feel any less guilty for her silence. Hard enough to hide her ever-growing inadequacies. 

In the end, even a dulled “Clarity” could be put to use in small ways. A sector on the edge of the Diamonds’ conquered territories, where nothing of interest had been found, still required monitoring. Rather than waste time, tech, and more useful gems on it, she would be stationed on one of the few habitable planets as a living alarm system. Any hints of danger or signs of opportunity were to be reported. All involved knew that would never happen, but it was a convenient and practical way to put Pink Diamond’s Sapphire in a place that Blue Diamond could peacefully forget her. 

But she was digressing. She did that a lot now. It only took a few days for the novelty and relief to wear thin and the Silence to become oppressive. Everywhere she went, the faint scuff of her slippers was the only sound. She pulled the diaphanous material of her wrap more tightly around her shoulders, as though the Silence was a physical presence that she did not want to feel the touch of. The weight of it settled all around her, thick and choking as the dust that covered every surface. 

As it went on, Sapphire could have sworn she heard voices coming from the empty rooms or just down the hallways. She knew it wasn’t real. ~~It wasn’t, right?~~ She looked anyway. And the random inexplicable thump or creak was just the building settling. Or the wind. ~~Or something or maybe someone. Oh, please have mercy and help me. I’m so lonely.~~ Or maybe her Visions were growing strange and unreliable in other ways. No, she knew the difference between a Vision and reality. ~~Did she? Did she really?~~

To push back against the Silence, she began talking to herself. It took practice. At first, her voice was so small and scared sounding that it was even worse than the Silence. Her own faint existence wasn’t enough, so she tried focusing on making the sound of that Voice louder and happier ~~and less like herself~~ until they were getting along companionably enough. Practice even taught her to mimic other Voices, which she found to be a major accomplishment. Creativity was not overly prized in a Gem that was required to give an unembellished accounting of what she Saw.

The main hall held another grand discovery. It must have been carefully constructed with acoustics in mind, tuned to carry sound in the most pleasing way possible, because singing in it produced clear echoes and a resonance she could feel humming in her gem and reverberating in the crystal windows. With it, Sapphire could pretend her voice was one part of a much greater choir. She'd never been loud before, but no one was there to tell her to be quiet. As that understanding sunk in, Sapphire found a renewed enthusiasm for existing. No, that was a lie. She was more excited than she'd ever believed possible and if the feeling left her shaking then maybe that's just what excitement was. 

One day, she paused in singing ~~when her throat felt so raw that tears were welling up in her eye. Was it pain or grief that the Silence would be back?~~ and wandered to where the light pouring in through the windows had made a dazzling rainbow of colors puddle on the white marble floor. Much to Sapphire’s delight, she found that standing in the way of the light meant the colors were cast against her own skin. She reveled in her borrowed vibrancy, hopping from one color to the next. She giggled, softly at first ~~blinking away the tears~~ , but growing in strength as she twirled around and leaped back through the spectrum. Each place she stopped dyed and dappled her with the colors of another gem: a new her, a different her. ~~A happier her?~~ At last she stopped in a vividly crimson area, reflected downward from the image of a blazing supernova, and admired herself. Not sapphire, but not quite ruby either. Garnet, perhaps. A deep, rich, lovely shade that brought a contented sigh to her lips.

Hesitantly, her arms wrapped around chest and hugged ~~the pieces of~~ herself tightly. Her knees buckled, but the movement felt almost slow and graceful. She was nothing more than light herself ~~or maybe just light-headed~~ and she became part of the broken prism spread out across the sun-warmed stone for a time. Sapphire stayed there long after the light and colors faded into darkness. 

From the ground ~~how many days had passed?~~ , Sapphire saw and Saw her next adventure. Just as no Gem was present to shame her or prevent her from acting without dignity by laughing too loudly and playing silly games, so too was there no one to stop her from being wild. Before her was the staircase leading to the upper levels. It rose, broad and high above her, and split to sweep out to either side, winding up the walls and out of sight. A grin that was no less broad stretched her face until it almost hurt and Sapphire heaved herself to her feet. After running up the stairs to what she assumed would be a sufficient height, she studied her new game carefully. 

It took a few tries and adjustments, but Sapphire finally managed to straddle the banister while keeping silk pulled tight between skin and stone. Off she went! Sliding, falling, flying, shrieking her delight at the top of her lungs! The windows and frescos went by in a brilliant, dizzying blur and her vestibular senses strained to keep up. And then, at the very last moment, Sapphire realized that she had forgotten one extremely important detail. Banisters have an ending point. 

Her body hit the floor with a jarring ~~shattering?!~~ crack and she knew nothing for a time. 

When Sapphire reformed, the first thing she did was stagger to her feet and reach over her shoulder to touch her gem. Her fingers trembled as they slid over the facets, but there wasn’t even a scratch. So she tried the banister again. Her second landing was no better. Practice did not make perfect. She did find an excellent solution in the end. She gathered pillows from all over the tower, pausing to jump on the furniture for the sheer pleasure of doing what she shouldn’t, and made a soft landing place that doubled as a cozy nest for naps. ~~She was tired a lot. So very, very tired.~~

The ocean presented a different sort of adventure. She was too dense to float, but it pleased her to sit on the shore. Every day Sapphire inched closer, deeper, into the water until it was up to her chest. There, she would sit for hours at a time, feeling the soft caress of the waves and the darker temptation of the current lurking just beneath the deceptively peaceful surface. Unlike the Silence inside, the quiet presence of the ocean didn’t make her skin crawl. She also watched the scattered comings and goings of the marine life, the only fauna that had been allowed to survive. The fish sometimes became tangled in her wrap, but she was quick to let them go. Or she had been, until a new scheme came to her. 

It seemed so foolproof that she didn't even bother glancing towards the future. The next time a good sized fish swam into her lap, Sapphire scooped it up in her wrap like it was a net. Her new pet wiggled energetically, but she held the edges of the silk shut and made a dash for the derelict fountain she'd see in the garden. It was murkier than she'd expected and there was a bit of debris, but that just meant the fish had places to hide and explore. Once released, her catch leapt high into the air and landed with a splash that threw glittering droplets of water everywhere. Sapphire applauded and squealed with glee, feeling almost like ~~herself~~ the days might start looking less monotonous. 

By dawn, her fish was dead. Sapphire had woken with a premonition that was more of a feeling of dread than any specific image and had run down the stairs so quickly she tripped and fell the rest of the way down. The disarray of her clothing could be ignored. The pain could too. Everything could be overlooked, except what Sapphire most wished she could avoid seeing. Nights were cold enough to glaze the surface of the world. Her feet left no imprints in it. She was, after all, no less frozen herself. A thin layer of ice rimmed the perimeter of the fountain, but it thickened as her hand plunged into the water and lifted up the pathetic corpse.

She patted it tenderly; hopeless and yet strangely compelled to make the attempt. It didn’t move. What she had seen as enthusiasm, the fish leaping and diving, swimming in dizzying circles all around it’s new home, had been nothing more than the frantic attempts of a trapped creature to escape. ~~Like her.~~ She sunk to her knees and held the poor thing out as if someone could take it from her and mend the mistake. ~~What kind of Sapphire was she, that she hadn’t used the one gift that made her worthy? Why hadn’t she thought to Look?!~~ Life would never mend itself again once it was ~~shattered~~ ~~blinded~~ changed for the worse. And, this time, there was no denying that ~~she hadn't mean to hurt it!~~ it was all her fault.

Sapphire was shaking now, but the ice hardening around her ~~trapped her~~ held her up. She tried to focus, but her mind squirmed away ~~like the dead thing in her hands had tried to~~ skittered uneasily from one thought to the next. It settled on a vague recollection from Earth. ~~How long ago was that? How long has she been alone here?~~ The life forms there ~~that the Gems had meant to exterminate~~ ~~Pink Diamond had made a zoo for~~ ~~Rose Quartz had defied her Diamond to save~~ seemed to have created a primitive society and they’d had fairly elaborate rituals surrounding death. They'd even taken the time to bury the remains left behind. 

Did they think they could hide from grief if they buried the evidence somewhere they couldn’t see it ever again? ~~Did it work? Is that what they’d done to her? Is that why no one had come even though they’d promised to send her a team of guards? Was the temple meant to be her tomb? A place here Blue Diamond could safely bury her away for all eternity and never be reminded of the Diamond she’d been made for? It was. Of course it was. She’d known it all along, hadn’t she?! She was just too cowardly to SEE.~~ The Silence ice closed tightly all around her and Sapphire desperately longed for air. Not because a Gem needed to breathe, but because without the movement of air over her vocal cords she couldn't ~~scream~~ make any sound. 

The noonday sun set her free from the prison of her own making. It gave her a horrifyingly long time to think. Even trapped, this exile had more liberty than she’d ever known. It made her sick to realize her race, whether they understood it or not, were neither more nor less slaves of the Diamonds. Those in the Diamond’s courts lived in prettier cages and the shackles were gilded, but was a thin facade. ~~And part of her would have done anything to go back.~~ She thought she’d been resigned before, but it turned out even she had still entertained some illusions. Quietly, without having made a single noise in hours, Sapphire buried her fish. But she did not forget.

It was ~~impossible ~~difficult to go back to dancing and singing in the main hall and the ocean had lost all appeal to her. Instead, Sapphire chose to explore the sublevels of the temple for the first time. It was storage areas, mostly, but one thing had interest. Volcanic activity in the seabed had created a series of bubbling springs that had been incorporated into the building's design as an added luxury. There was little in the way of decoration for these lower levels, but the sandstone walls, polished flawlessly smooth, glittered with veins and deposits of colored quartz in warm pinks and smokey golden-browns.~~~~

~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~

At the end of the stairs, an simple archway opened out onto a massive cavern whose limits were lost in deep shadow. Steam rose in thick clouds from bubbling pools. When Sapphire breathed, she found the air was heavy with humidity and left the metallic tang of minerals on her tongue. Cut crystal lanterns, shining in the colors of the four Diamonds, hung suspended from the ceiling on long, but delicately wrought, chains. The effect was a diffuse, wavering glow that danced somewhere along the line between whimsical and eerie. 

Sapphire dismissed the illusion of clothing from a body that wasn’t real and followed a meandering path between the pools, pausing now and then to trail her fingers through the bubbling water. She recoiled from the scalding heat at first, instinctively dropping her own core temperature to resist it. Ice volatilized, losing its nature and mingling with the existing steam until any trace of what it had been was lost in what it was now. The Future of it wasn’t worth Looking at. 

Her short hair clung to her face and stuck to her neck, but pushing it away was too much effort. One pool seemed cooler than the others or maybe she was getting too warm to tell the difference anymore. She plunged in without consciously making the choice or maybe she had fainted from the heat, it was hard to tell because her thoughts were like the water. Formless and clouded, bubbling up from somewhere dark and rising towards the faint light above. Sapphire lifted a small hand and reached towards the surface.

But it was pleasant down here, in the dim warmth, embraced on all sides by the weight and white noise of the water. Her arm drifted back down and joined the other in wrapping around her ribs. Maybe she’d stay here and never leave. But the lanterns overhead, even distorted by the barrier between them, were so beautiful. She loved the play of the light and color on the surface. That’s where she wanted to be.

Slowly, because she felt so weak and tired, Sapphire rolled over onto to her hands and knees. Then to her feet. The weight of the water wasn’t so welcome now. It pressed down on her shoulders and back, but she was a stubborn gem and reached both hands over her head to grasp the edge of the pool. And found it was too high. Her hands slapped against the stone. Futile. Pointless. _Frustrated_. She threw herself harder against the wall, scrambling and clawing in a wild effort to climb out. And just as quickly sank back down in exhaustion. Tears meant less than nothing under water. 

It was night when Sapphire crawled back into the Silence of the main hall. What night, she neither knew nor cared. Water dripped from her naked body and left a trail behind her. There was vague satisfaction in having made a mess and in the immodesty, but it was an empty victory. She was empty. The light that filtered through the windows was no less weak and lifeless. Pale blue. The only color in the rainbow that she could call her own and she hated it in that moment.

Shivering and stripped of everything she’d ever known or valued, Sapphire threw back her head and screamed ~~And screamed and SCREAMED _AND SCREAMED_~~ to the point where her voice ~~shattered~~ broke and the echoes drowned her out. No longer a melodious choir, but a deafening cacophony reflecting back all her pain and rage and grief until the sound of it terrified her. Even then, it seemed to go on endlessly, taking on a life of its own. She ran and tried to hide from it, but the sound chased her into a crack in the raised base of a column. There, only her own sobbing remained. 

When she calmed, Sapphire went to the discarded pile of pillows and dragged a few back to her hole. It was a tight fit, but being wedged in seemed to bring a sort of comfort that she desperately needed. Sapphire slept, deeply and dreamlessly. She was vaguely aware of the cycles of light and darkness, but she no longer felt like a part of that world. Freed from all mental constraints, her Vision naturally followed the ebb and flow of time, carrying her with the current. 

A Possibility flickered in the periphery of her Sight, but she ignored it. ~~Leave me alone.~~ She was comfortable in her nonexistence, surrounded by rock just as she had been at the point of her creation and protected from the harsh edges of reality by a soft padding of her own making. The gift that had seemingly abandoned her when she needed it now refused to leave her in peace. Again and again it tried to show her vivid fragments of a Maybe that seemed to drift invitingly close before she shut them out. ~~Go away. I don't care anymore.~~

Life and Fate were persistent things, though. Like the gleam of lamplight that had drawn her from the darkness of the water, the broken images danced just out of reach and her mind gradually focused on something for the first time in ~~she didn’t know~~ a long time. Focus returned, but the anxiety was still slumbering deeply. With a strange kind of peace that she'd never known before, Sapphire Watched as a Possibility became a Future. Someone was coming. 

Someone was coming? 

Slow as sleep, as dreams, as the movement of a glacier, she Watched until it filled her horizon. She didn't have to struggle to call the timeline to her. It ran down the paths of her mind like a stream of bright, clear water, washing away the dusty shadows that had crowded everything else out. A small, quiet part of her marveled at how effortless it was, but the greater part of her mind fixed her Sight on the Future. 

When Sapphire had first come into existence, she had emerged knowing her purpose and accepting it without any particular feeling. This time she smacked her skull on rock and spat out a few words that were entirely unladylike ~~which she'd learned by listening to off duty Quartzs in her previous life.~~ She no longer had that unwavering certainty of either self or purpose, but she clutched tightly to a determination born from all the shards of feelings and events that had cut her to pieces… and failed to destroy her.

The marble floor was smooth and cold beneath her as Sapphire crawled out. The simple exertion left her feeling spent and lightheaded, but she forced her shaking legs beneath her and stumbled forward into the sunlight beyond. Pain, dagger sharp and as blinding as the light surrounding her, lanced through her eye. It didn’t stop her. Sapphire raised a thin hand to shade her vision and looked up into the blaze of color captured in the leaded window frames. Flickers of fire, Ruby-red and inviting, danced into being within the living spectrum of color dazzling her eye. 

They were sending her Rubies as guards and in the brilliant, beautiful torment of What Must Be she could Foresee trouble already. They'd been instructed to maintain their distance from her and to not cross the line which another Sapphire and her guard had once so unforgivably crossed. One of them, the strongest, the most determined, would try to oppose her at every turn. Beyond that, the future branched into so many bewildering possibilities that she chose not to Look. She don't need to, because she was going to take the future in her own hands and make it what she wanted it to be. 

Although she still felt fragile inside and out, Sapphire paused to Look for a few more seconds at the spark of hope on her horizon. When she could Watch no more, Sapphire turned from Will Be to What Is. She would need to put the pillows away and make some small efforts to hide her half-forgotten escapades. She was still a Lady, even in exile, and there were a few expectations she felt like meeting. Sapphire ran her hands through her wild halo of hair and down the bare plains of her form, chuckling softly to herself. Other things needed fixing too. The Silence was still all around her, but change would happen and that was Good. She could do it. 

Sapphire shrugged off the Silence and stepped forward.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Character Line-up for future reference. Art by my partner [Empyrisan](http://empyrisan.tumblr.com/).


End file.
